A Ballad to Sweden's Biggest Show (I Was There - Gothenburg Melodifestivalen Semi 1 2019)
My ex-flatmate Phil was the lucky person who decided to come along for the adventure and we met promptly at Heathrow Airport Terminal 5 at 6 am. Somehow, the cheapest way to get to Gothenburg on Saturday morning was to fly British Airways so we took advantage of their Euro Traveller fare category to board a 7:50 am flight, landing into Gothenburg around 10:50 am. This may sound obvious given the time of year and the location but there was a lot of snow... everywhere! Many people around me thought going to Northern Europe in winter is a silly thing to do but when the opportunity to watch the first Melodifestivalen Semi at the 1985 Eurovision venue presents itself, it's simply impossible to not jump at the chance!
I was actually excited about this particular Semi Final from the moment that it was announced. A Semi that included Sweden's only act to fail to qualify from a Eurovision Semi Final, a former televote winner, a Grammy winner, a perennial competitor, an up and coming Swedish producer, a veteran singer/political activist and a new girl group always promised to be extremely competitive. Then when the running order was announced and Anna Bergendahl was put in the closing slot, it built excitement even more. Would Wiktoria have to compete in Andra Chansen? Would Nano win the whole thing? Was Mohombi's song going to fail to translate to a Swedish audience? All these questions built up in my head until Thursday when the gifts that are the one-minute snippet for each artist were released. I went into every snippet in the belief that it could be my favourite though admittedly I have a soft spot for Wiktoria! At the end of the listening, I decided that Wiktoria was my favourite and that whilst it would come down to the staging, Nano would probably go through on account of him being him! The Eurovision media were reminding people of the patterns regarding the first and last slot being the best slots to qualify from. Then the Melodifestivalklubben results came out point towards a Mohombi win with Wiktoria to place second and Nano and Anna Bergendahl to head to Andra Chansen and I was very surprised. I had always trusted these results as an approximate indicator for who would do best or worst in each Semi Final but this was set to be a massive result if it was true.
It was when the staging clips were released that I saw the rain on Wiktoria's performance and could say with certainty not only that she would go through but that this was potentially her best chance yet to win the whole contest. The other stagings looked intriguing but it was obviously difficult to say what would work best on stage and of course, we had only heard a minute of each song!
It was at the airport that I explained all of this context to Phil who listened with intrigue and fascination on the massive nature of this show. We discussed if there was anything close to a British equivalent but as us Eurovision fans know, there honestly is no national final-level equivalent to the magic of Melodifestivalen. One of the main reasons for this being the case is the Melodifestivalen is the biggest show in Sweden. This was something that I had known about and yet seeing Melodifestivalen pennant on display around the city really brought that reality to the front of my mind. This show means a lot to Sweden and even though this was a first semi-final, the stakes were definitely high!
With quite a bit of time before the show itself, Phil and I braved the icy conditions to go and see Gothenburg itself. It wasn't snowing during the time we were there however as it was very cold, the snow was still laid thick upon the ground like icing on a cake. The city itself has a fascinating story. It is Sweden's second city and yet it is not only very small but also doesn't take anywhere near the international plaudits of Stockholm. The city was founded in the early 1600s as a trading colony with the Dutch and culture experts on Gothenburg enjoy comparing it to Amsterdam because of its canal network. Whilst I admit this is a bit of a stretch, the history relating to the city's layout directly points to its existence today as the largest port in the Nordic countries. From a modern, international perspective, the city exists at the home of Volvo, the location of the 1992 European Championship Final and the 1985 Eurovision Song Contest. I admitted to Phil that following Sweden's recent hostings in Malmo and Stockholm, it might not be a huge stretch to suggest that Gothenburg might have a decent chance of being the next Swedish hosts should the Swedes win again in the near future.
With dark eventually setting in around 5 pm, we opted to find a café to sit down in. I checked SVT's Twitter account in the hope that they had released the 2.5 minute snippets that they had done in previous years. They hadn't but they had put up a post saying that 7,000 people had attended the dress rehearsal the previous night. For any broadcaster to confidently fill half of a 14,000 seat arena for an event that wasn't even the proper edition of the event is nothing short of remarkable. I reminded Phil that with a sell-out crowd expected, more people would be in the arena for tonight's Semi Final than would be in the arena for this year's Grand Final (but that discussion is for another article).
We arrived at the venue around 6:30 pm thinking that we had come too early but that at least we had plenty of time. We were greeted by a huge crowd of people who had already turned up to revel in the incredible atmosphere that was already being created! Vendors were selling sparkly hats, orange boas and coloured wands. There were special places to take photos next to the Melodifestivalen insignia. To my surprise, various sponsors of the contest were giving out free snacks ahead of the contest including the local coop supermarket giving away free cups of fruit (and not just any fruit but mango, grapes, melon). The Coca Cola stand had a wall with different genres of music on it next to holes so that by throwing away your Coke can, you were voting for a type of music with the results displayed on a screen. Having attended Eurovision 2016, I had known that the Swedes knew how to run Eurovision-style events very well but this was nothing short of incredible. The diversity of people in terms of age, race, gender-split there was unexpected but very joyous.
Entering the auditorium itself, we found the Scandinavium to be a fascinating shape. The roof of the arena comes down in the centre making it difficult to see across the arena and also meaning that the lights are fairly low. This is obviously optimum for ice hockey but meant that our view of the stage was side-on. In any case, the warm up act came on around 7:30 pm and despite not knowing Swedish, a healthy dose of former Swedish Eurovision entries and some Melodifestivalen favourites meant that I was singing along in no time whilst Phil was surprised that I knew Carola sang 'Fangard av en Stormvind' in Rome in 1991 (as if I would ever forget).
Soon enough, the lights came down and we were underway. I did need to make use of Twitter to keep up with the hosts (thank you SVT Twitter for your handy English commentary) but for the most part, it was easy to revel in the fun. The show was great with excellent, Eurovision-level staging for every act (BBC, as we say every year, please take notes). Nano was definitely not putting 100% into his performance which led me to calling him not going straight through the moment after his performance was done. High15 gave it their all but were ultimately making up the numbers. Wiktoria was utter perfection from start to finish and I wish that this wasn't my first opportunity to hear the song because I wanted to capture it on video whilst simultaneously deciding what I thought of the song and revelling in the rainy sorrow of that moment. Zeana and Arja added musical variety and to be fair, were not terrible acts, they just never had a chance next to the more seasoned competitors they were up against. Mohombi was the real surprise of the night. I absolutely hate the song but when he came off stage, I could say nothing but "wow" at the fantastic staging that had been put together. Some make arguments about the similarity between his staging and Mans' but I think he takes the whole concept a step further and the result is terrific. Anna Bergendahl's staging by contrast was not only needlessly big and unwieldly for the stage crew trying to quickly set up but also added nothing to the song. I suppose it can be said in the end that the result wasn't any particular surprise. I reckon Anna will struggle to get through Andra Chansen but I can only make a judgement when I know what she's up against whilst Nano will probably get his act together on the second attempt. Nevertheless it was a show that had everything including a nice celebration of Israel's winning Eurovision entry (Eric Saade as Dana International being a particular highlight)!
I have called this post a ballad because in the same way that Wiktoria's ballad won me over, my entire experience around the first Melodifestivalen Semi of 2019 in Gothenburg won me over! Eurovision fans may love tuning into the show on their laptops from across the continent but attending it live is attending a six-week celebration of everything Sweden that travels around the country and is loved but young and old, rich and poor, man and woman. I cannot recommend making the pilgrimage to one of the shows enough and I can definitely assure all those considering the trip that it being a semi didn't take away from the endless amounts of joy and fun had by everybody watching in the arena, throughout Sweden and around the world!
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